Cider and lambic are both fantastic drinks, but did you know that once combined, the whole is even greater than the sum of its parts? This post will cover three different cider and lambic projects that I have been working on. First of all a homemade blend of wild-fermented cider from the Basque Country with lambic. Then another project of a cider and lambic co-fermentation, and lastly, a collaborative project with De Vercierderij from Rotterdam.
Something with an X
Inspired by Angerik’s Cuvée Kluysbosch Lambiek – Cider, I decided to make a lambic-cider blend as well. Like Angerik, I decided to use Basque wild-fermented cider. A three-week road trip through Northern Spain and the Basque Country last summer was the perfect opportunity to get my hands on some cider. On the way back home to Belgium and after several unsuccessful stops explaining the purpose of my visit in broken Spanish at random cideries around San Sebastian, I managed to buy 20 liters of cider at Alorreana in Astigarraga. After some minor leakage, that first made my car smell of cider before turning into apple cider vinegar, upon arriving home I bought 20 liters of lambic (10 liters each of De Troch and Girardin) and blended this all together for one of my first releases named Something with an X (a hint to the weird and intriguing Basque language that has a lot of X’s). After 5 months of bottle conditioning the result is a crisp and refreshing slightly funky and sour drink that resembles a natural wine. It’s perfectly enjoyable already but will get even better over time. Take a look at the page with all of my blends for the label and if you’re interested in trying some.
Cider and Lambic Co-Fermentation
As driving to Spain every month to get new cider isn’t an option and I wanted to make some more lambic-cider hybrids, I decided to try making cider myself. Luckily the in-laws have two big apple trees in their garden. Only one hour of harvesting and pre-dominantly picking the low-hanging fruit already provided me with approximately 35 kilograms of apples. To press the apples I reached out to De Vercierderij in Rotterdam, a small-scale cidery located in the basement of a beautiful former tobacco, coffee, and tea factory (Van Nelle Fabriek). In return for helping them out with processing and pressing a few hundred kilograms of apples and pears, they were willing to give me my share of the juice. After a wonderful day of helping them and out trying some freshly pressed juice and tasting some ciders, I took home 20 liters of apple juice to turn into cider at home. However, this is where things got tricky. I only planned to drive back to Brussels a few days later, so had to store the jerrycan of apple juice somewhere cold to try and slow down any activity from the wild yeast. What better place to do this than in my car, I thought. Well, I thought wrong, somehow the jerrycan had tilted and 10 liters of apple juice had leaked into the back of my car. Again, my car smelled deliciously of fresh apples the first few days. However, after that not so much. Lesson learned.
As my fermentation tank is 20 liters and I didn’t want to make vinegar, I decided to top up the fermenting apple juice with 10 liters of lambic from Girardin. Later I added more lambic to this from De Troch and Eylenbosch, as well as around 1 kilogram of home-made black apples and pears. After several months, the taste is still quite young and malty so I will probably just let this go for at least a year to see how it develops. Will be continued.
Collab with De Vercierderij
After the day of helping out at De Vercierderij, we sat down and enjoyed some of their amazing wild ciders. As I had just bottled Something with an X a few weeks before, I brought one bottle with me to try. Because of this, the idea was born to make a cider-lambic blend together. January this year we met again in Rotterdam to blend and bottle our collab. Their barrel-aged wild-fermented cider was blended with old lambic and a small portion of 3-month-old lambic to provide some sugars for the carbonation after some months of bottle conditioning. If all goes well and we don’t drink all of it ourselves during quality testing, we’ll have a limited quantity for sale later this year! So, stay tuned for more on this exciting project.
If you want to stay updated about these projects follow me (and De Vercierderij) on Instagram. And, don’t forget to send me a DM if you’re interested in one of the bottles of Something with an X! Cheers!